


Realize

by kayls



Series: Growing Up/No One Understands [5]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Human, Gen, High School AU, Humanstuck, Minor Character Death, Minor Character Mentioned Suicide, Suicidal Thoughts, Tutoring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-30
Updated: 2014-05-10
Packaged: 2018-01-17 14:18:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 7,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1390894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kayls/pseuds/kayls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>your name doesn't matter, and tonight you're going to fly</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

You're wasting your time here, but you'd do anything to get Miss Harley off your back. You feel bad for her-- she must be fresh out of school, she's so chipper and looks young and always has a sincere smile for you when you go or get sent to her office.

So when she started to realize something was up, you went along with her requests. You couldn't afford to do otherwise-- it calmed her down and kept her from asking more questions. More questions would have meant more talking, and sooner or later she would have figured out what you had planned.

She would have put together that tonight, you were going to finally fly. Realized that this upturning of mood was not because you had someone to talk to or that your anti-depressants were working (or that you had even taken them for more than a week before calling bullshit on the whole thing and throwing them out with the morning's coffee grounds)-- but that it was because you finally had a finalized plan to kill yourself. Realized that the voice in your head that hated you had finally become an ally, because God you were never meant to live this long anyway.

As part of pleasing Miss Harley, you agreed to go to tutoring to bring your depressed (ha, pun.) grades up before the semester, and study the material you had 'missed' before the finals start.

You find yourself in the public library, waiting for your mysterious math tutor. Geometry has been kicking your ass, much more so than any of your other subjects, or even just life in general. You smile, feeling sorry for whatever flighty broad is taking time out of their probably happy life to babysit a near-future corpse. But, hey, at least you dressed up for the occasion, wearing a white button up shirt with a gray cardigan, black straight leg jeans and black slip on shoes-- all of them more or less immaculate, more so than your usual every day affair.

You brush some hair out of your face, and you catch eyes with someone walking by the stacks a few tables over. They look smart. They have on glasses, thick-framed like the current trend, but also light-weight looking, like they were made for someone who was so busy they couldn't take them off. Their backpack is heavy, you can see it cut into their shoulders. They have a sweatshirt from the local university on, and you think you see a lanyard from the honors college sticking out of their pocket. At least, that's what you think it is-- it's the same colors and pattern as the lanyards the really smart kids at school are all carrying.

And they approach you. You shift in your seat a little bit, trying to keep calm when you know what's ahead. As they get closer, you manage to shut out most of the outside stuff, just barely tuned in but otherwise getting static.

“Tavri...?” The young woman asks, and even though she can't figure out how to pronounce your name the right way she already sounds so much more intelligent than you could ever hope to be. She finds your gaze and her eyes are asking questions. You nod, because, yeah, that is your name, sorta, and she smiles softly and sits a chair or two away from you-- not across the long table but not beside you.

“I'm K.” She says, swinging the heavy gray knapsack to the ground and unloading a few notebooks and pens, her eyes turning back into question marks as she tries to sort through what she has and what she doesn't. She seems overworked.

And a little secretive. No one is just named K. You watch her for a moment, trying to get a reading. You feel like a seismograph sometimes. You feel everything, even if it doesn't matter.

Finally, the girl sighs a little, looking up at you, smiling and arching her fingers on the table. “So, uh, what have you been working on in geometry?” She asks.

You shrug halfheartedly. “I don't really... know. I'm sorry. I guess.”

K watches you, her face deflating a little. “Well, okay... What do you have trouble with, then? Is some of the vocabulary throwing you? Or is it the formulas and equations? Proofs... God, I always hated proofs.”

You're starting to shut down, though. You feel your shoulders shrug, and your eyes half close, lazily looking at this girl who is too good of a person to be near the likes of you, to be stuck here on a promise of tutoring looking nice on applications and resumes. 

She realizes how much you don't care, don't know, don't matter. At first she looks sad, and then angry. “Do you even care, or am I wasting my time?!” She asks, her frown making an angry dent in her forehead.

This shocks you back into being, into focusing. You shift back in your chair, internally bracing for the worst. This is why you're going to end it tonight. You're used to being disappointed in yourself. Having your friends and family and people you see all the time disappointed. But a stranger. In less than an hour. You shake your head, whisper “Sorry,” and move to pick up your bag, intending to leave and just end it now.


	2. Chapter 2

K grabs your sleeve, and you pause. She draws away quickly, letting go like maybe she wasn't sure if she was allowed to do that. “Hey... I'm sorry. I'm just, sorta stressed. My finals started today and I'm working on caffeine instead of sleep.” She apologizes, and her frown and the dent in her forehead don't look angry anymore. They're soft now and she really does look sorry, and you're sorry that you put her through this. Sorry that she got stuck with you.

“It's okay, K. I-- I understand. Maybe you should go, uh, study, yourself? Or sleep? I really don't need the help. It's not like I matter much...” You tell her, pulling at the hem of your shirt as you sit back down, one leg underneath yourself as you ease into a flight or fight position. And for you, it's always flight. You start to think about tonight-- it calms you down a little. If you can just get through this tutoring session you can go home before your parents can get there. Go home and fly.

K looks at you. “Hey... what do you mean you don't matter much? Are you okay?” She asks. You look up, actually manage to look her in the eyes. 

She looks worried. Too worried and you realize what you said, words you knew were true but never dared say out loud before because you know it would cause this-- worry and panic over someone that those feelings should have never been born for. Someone who should have never been born. 

You take a deep breath and let it out through your mouth, trying to ward off the panic attack but oh God you messed up. You feel attached and she got trapped in your web and the voice in your head is yelling a lot because this was not how today was supposed to go. You were supposed to ride your bike straight home and call your parents to tell them something made up, like maybe you needed a notebook for a class or something, something easy and painless where you could say “I love you” before you hung up and... hung up. Made up to make sure that your last words to both of them were that you loved them. But now you're cutting it close on time anyway and getting people involved.

“What's wrong?” She asks again. Her eyes are painted blue with absolute worry and you can't look away.

“I'm... I, uh, I'm fine.” You say, choking on the lies and the catch in your throat. 

“You're not fine. You're trembling like a leaf.”

You're shaking, like she said, and you feel two hands on you, one at each shoulder. It's K. You think she's trying to hold you or comfort you or something but you keep shaking harder and you think you're about to cry. Her hands float off and she turns away, and you think that she might be able to drop it. For a second, you believe it-- K starts packing things up. 

“It's okay, come with me for a sec, okay?” Belief shattered, she won't leave it. But, her voice is soft, warm like a blanket out of the dryer you just want to curl up and fall asleep but something won't let you. Your internal drives are at war, the one you were born with begging you to stay alive, and the one you acquired over time, the one that grew a voice and is telling you to run away, to fly, to die.

You're sniffling, wiping at your eyes and you're not even sure what's going on anymore. But K has her backpack and yours too, walking slowly in front of you with one of her hands trailing back in the netherspace between her body and yours but she doesn't seem to care if you hold it or not, so you keep your hands either stuffed in the pockets of your jeans or close to your face, rubbing your eyes or flipping hair out of your face or just trying to fidget.

K leads you to a study room, leaves the door ajar even with the clear glass windows but it's in the back of the library anyway nothing or no one here but you and the dust of old books.

“Can you please tell me what's wrong? I know... I know that we don't know each other but... do you need help? Do you need me to call someone?” She asks, dropping the backpacks on the ground and reaching for her cell phone.

You shake your head hard, whispering “No.” Then you try to straighten up. “I don't want to burden anyone... else.”

K looks at you for a long time. “Burden... anyone else?” She asks, and you aren't sure but you think you can see her heart breaking. She's quiet for a while, and she wipes at her eyes with the sleeve of her sweatshirt. “Oh, no, not again.” She whispers, shaking her head in her hands.

Your eyebrows peak up, because 'again' makes you wonder. How many times has this poor girl been called in by Miss Harley, or the other guidance counselors? How many other times has she had to deal with a complete nutcase suicidal mess, who didn't care about geometry or whatever else she tutored in too.

K stares you down, and you can see tears in her eyes. You've made her cry, and the voice in your head is laughing at you, telling you that you should have skipped and damn Miss Harley because you're going to die anyway no one will care if you went to a tutoring session she asked you to.

“Are you suicidal? Please, no no.” K is shaking just as hard as you are now, her eyes sparkling like the ocean, like they're drowning in that ocean and God it's all your fault just like always.


	3. Chapter 3

The flood gates open. You break down, you're crying, as you tell K, this virtual stranger who is still just a kid, who is still growing up just like you growing up like a video game perpetually set on hard even though they tell you that you can change the difficulty level you can't. She's a kid and growing up too just like you and it's hard and no one else understands.

You tell her about the fact that you hate yourself and you don't remember when it started but somewhere along the way the voice that you heard in your head when you thought or read silently to yourself turned angry and mean and violent and not like your own and told you that you would never be any good. You tell her about the fact that try as you might you will never be good enough for anything in this world, people too kind for someone like you.

You don't know how much time has passed or when it happened but you're sitting in a chair from around the table and K is standing behind you, holding you tight but you're both still shaking.

“I'm sorry you got stuck with me, K.” You sniff, and you say it again and again because the apology just doesn't feel right no matter how you say it.

“No, no, no, it's okay kiddo it's okay it's okay, okay.” K is mumbling too, trying to calm down.

And she eventually does, sort of, pacing the room and wringing her hands together. 

“It's just, oh God, you remind me a lot of people I love. Loved? They're, uh, past-tense now but I still love them a lot and just, I fucked up so badly with them I can't fuck up with you.” She says, and you're surprised because you figured that she cursed and figured that statistically (you're horrible at math but memorizing stats was something else entirely, you guess) she had probably been touched by suicide at one point or another but didn't really think someone like her would curse, didn't think someone that, until you broke, looked so perfectly put together like even if she had ever broken all of the pieces had been fastened right where they had been before could have ever been broken like this.

“Can I ask?” You say, timidly and quietly hoping not to upset her more. You never meant to get her involved. Never meant to prolong this. You had already said most of your goodbyes. But now not only had you said a hello, you had started a conversation, communicated the darkest secrets of your mind as if this stranger could save you.

“Yeah, sure. Yeah... So, uh, oh, God. My freshman year at the university, a lot of my friends were there. And um, I had two really great friends, specifically, like, we were absolutely close. They, uh, had a lot of bad blood. They didn't get along. I kind of mediated when they needed too, but I just liked, hanging with both of them, separately. Uh, one, was named Tavros. And he was kind of shy, but he cared a lot, was really friendly. But he was always really self-conscious. Never had a lot of self-confidence. He, uh, wrote really amazing stories, kind of as an escape... He got hurt, when he was young. He had to use crutches and braces to walk and stuff?” She stops off there, her voice raised in a question at the end and already she's daubing at her eyes with her sleeves.

“And, there was, Vriska. She, um, was kind of a rose, if that makes sense? If you could get past the thorns, she was lovely. But she had a lot of problems, too, and was kinda, really mean to cover them up. And I know, she, uh, picked on Tavros a lot in middle and high school. Not so much, like our senior year, but when, uh, the college stress got to her, she started up again.”

You nod. You think you might remember them from a few years ago-- maybe your freshman or sophomore year. You definitely remembered a kid with crutches, with a lot of hair in a sort of floppy mohawk and always blushing.

“Well, finals were coming up, and uh, Vriska got more and more stressed and took it out on, everyone. But especially Tavros. And he just, uh, couldn't deal. The morning of his first final, his uh, roommate-- actually, someone else we all hung out with, a boy named Karkat, was out of the dorm really early for one of his finals, and, when he came back, Tavros was dead. He couldn't handle all of the world's bullshit, I guess.” K has her glasses in one hand, the other sucked into a sleeve and hiding her eyes.

Your own eyes go a little wide, sorry for her loss and the loss of him because you remember him being a cool person but you also feel a little jealous. Jealous because he's out and you're not.

“And, uh, Vriska, caught wind of it and, there was an investigation and she was, well, being hounded pretty hard about it. Like some of Tavros's friends, they were harassing her. I think, uh, she ended up getting some death threats. She couldn't really go to any of her classes. But, during the investigation, she had to be questioned a lot, and they were usually with the dean and the police and security and counselors and just so many people. Well, and, so, um... she was late to a meeting with the dean and the, the, uh, police. Like, she didn't show up. They had been discussing, not to her, but like, among the team, putting her on suicide watch because she had gotten pretty impulsive. But they were too late. She had, uh, killed herself that morning. Her roommate had been away with their girlfriend that weekend.” 

K has tears streaming down her face, too busy distracting herself and jingling her lanyard. You watch it, and realize that she does have a name: Kanaya Maryam. Not that that matters when two of her best friends are dead. When she's worried that you, a dumb little kid, is going to do it next. But it's nice to know what the K stands for.

“I'm really sorry that happened...” You say, your voice low and quiet and you can hear this girl sniffling and trying to pull herself together and you're so sorry and you don't want her to ever read about your death but you still don't think you're going to be able to stop this train.

“You just, really remind me of them, both. Like, I talked to Miss Harley when she asked me to tutor. To Mr. Strider,” you gulp, your math teacher who probably hates you, “and they both said that you're just, like, great but you don't know what to do and you try to cover it up with this thing of 'I don't care' and,” you watch her, she's starting to cry again and it's making you tear up again even though the voice in your head is screaming telling you to keep calm and to not care, proving this poor girl's point, “I did the exact same thing after they died I didn't care I still try not to care and now you're suicidal and I've been there too but I just can't bear to know that you want to hurt yourself like that and just...”

Kanaya has broken down again and is shaking and now you're trying to comfort her your hands just barely on her shoulders but you feel so dirty and horrible because even with her friends dead, even with this girl, this stranger but not really anymore, having at one point been here and yet she survived... despite all that you're still planning.


	4. Chapter 4

The young tutor puts her glasses on the table, uses thin hands to pull her short dark hair into a little ponytail, you watch her hands tremble and wonder if her heart skipped beats when she realized what you intended to do. She turns back to you and she's kind of gone pale. You worry too, your hands feeling icy cold, has she read your mind?

“Are you going to be safe if you go home?” Kanaya asks, her eyes cold and red and still shimmering underneath harsh florescent lights. She's looking right at you, as if she's trying to look through you.

“Y-yeah, of course. After your story, I couldn't do that to you or to anyone...” You tell her. Her eyes pinpoint on you.

“Please don't lie to me. Please. You can't.”

You stall. You try to tell her about the summer that you made pinhole cameras and took pictures of all the old buildings around town and how you entered them in an art contest but got beat out by some new girl named Callie who honestly deserved it more anyway.

“Please. Please, Tavri...”

She still can't get your name right but she's trying, you wonder if she's ever going to stop crying but you feel like there's more to this story, more than Tavros and Vriska and you and her. Your seismograph is scoring a huge 8.0 but you can't invade this girl's privacy more than you already have. She never signed up for a task like this. Never asked to be hand delivered all of your problems in a pretty little package.

“Please be honest with me. If you go home, will you be able to stay safe?”

You shake your head, and spill out again but this time it feels controlled and concise, like you're playing with the tap in the bathroom trying to figure out where it'll spit out little drops timed to the second. “If I go home, I'm going to kill myself.” You say it like it's a fact, like you could open any psychology textbook and it would give that same reading.

Kanaya nods slowly, picks herself up out of her chair. She pulls her backpack up to her shoulders, and takes yours into her hands. “My apartment is just off campus. You're coming with me, okay, kiddo?” She tries to smile, the redness in her eyes going down but you can still tell that she is broken too, broken just like you and you can't help but to think that you made her this way.

The two of you trot out of the library, like tin toy soldiers giving no sign to what has occurred. Kanaya's hand drifts back to the space in between you and her now, and this time you take it, feeling connected to another person and, God, to the world, for the first time in what seems like ages.

She shows you to a little blue car, and you slide in the passenger side when she unlocks it. Kanaya tosses the backpacks into the back seat, and gears up to drive.


	5. Chapter 5

The university is far away, and she tries to fill the static with small talk. You start tuning her out, not to be rude but because you are tired, because the voice in your head still won't be quiet, still won't let you live with the fact that maybe... maybe you do want to live. You follow the cadence of Kanaya's voice, soft and maybe a little foreign. You want to ask her if her parents are from somewhere else or if she is but you think it might be rude and you just want to curl up and sleep until everything blows over and your can think clearly again.

 

… You must have dozed off, because when you open your eyes again you're in the next town over, zooming by the university campus and a little further, down some side streets until you hit wall after wall of apartment complexes. Kanaya makes better sense of the maze than you do, she's not talking anymore but singing along to the radio, sweet and soft indie music and you are so happy that she listens to that kind of music because that was exactly what you expected after you stopped expecting nothing and it feels so good to realize for once that you are not always wrong, that the voice in your head that hates you isn't always right.

 

Kanaya pulls up and parks near one of the buildings, and there's a pot with a daisy in it on the porch and it makes you smile too, but you're still beating yourself up a little because you know that you could have been dead by now and you don't know how to feel about that any more.

 

You start to unbuckle your seat belt and get up, but Kanaya touches your shoulder. “Just wait a sec', okay?” She says gently. “I, uh, I probably should have told my girlfriend first. Bu-but it'll be okay, don't worry!” She smiles, as if to calm you down, as if the news has stressed you out particularly that her girlfriend might not be willing to share their house with a teenage mental case (maybe it has...) “I'm calling her right now. She's really cool.”

 

“Wait... girlfriend. Off campus...” You murmur, eyes squinting as you try to brush away the pulled cotton balls, the fuzz and fluff and fog sticking around in your head but it hurts. “You were Vriska's roommate, weren't you?” You ask, and then hold your mouth because you're worried that this will set Kanaya off again, make her unstable again ruin everything that this nice girl is trying to do for you to make sure you're safe and maybe, you think for a second, maybe you deserve to have it ruined like it's the universe telling you that you were never meant to live.

 

But Kanaya is okay, you think. She can't meet your eyes, but she nods and says “Yeah,” quietly, sweet voice no edge, and pulls a smart phone with spiderweb cracks at the bottom edge closest to you out of the kangaroo pocket on her hoodie. “Yeah, I was.” She says, a tiny little laugh and you don't really know what's going on anymore.

 

There's an electricity-studded silence for a moment, as Kanaya punches in the number and waits for an answer. She tries to smile, and when the other side of the call answers, her voice is happy, betraying the look of mixed emotion on her face. “Hey Ro-Lal! Yeah, I'm right outside, but... uh, something happened when I was tutoring today. I brought the kid over... no, it's... they couldn't really go home. I'll explain more when I get inside... okay, fawn? ...Okay, see you in a second, cutie.” She smiles, ending the call and putting the phone away. “Come on, kiddo. You're bunking here for a bit.” The young woman says, her little features shining bright behind her glasses. Her eyes don't look red anymore. There's a faint ring of dark around her eyes, you can't tell whether it's from tear-stained kohl liner or all-night study sessions or both.

 

Kanaya pops out of the car, wrapping her lanyard with the car keys around her fist. She stretches, and then she's opening the back door and pulling out her backpack and yours too. You slowly untangle your limbs, thin and gawky like you were taffy-pulled at puberty, and duck out of your side too. You realize that Kanaya is still taller than you, by a head or maybe a half-head, and she is a contradiction. Seeming tiny and giant all at once, depending on secrets of the universe that you don't know if you'll ever catch on to.

 

Maybe if she were younger, if you weren't perpetually jumping the line in the sand between Death Row and Recovery, maybe if she wasn't making some other girl she calls “Ro-Lal” and “fawn” and “cutie” incredibly happy, you would ask her out. But maybes never worked in your favor, anyway, so it was a waste of time to imagine.

 

The two of you go up to the step, Kanaya in front of you. She turns the knob first, but it's locked and she rolls her eyes, mumbling something about someone named Lalonde (you assume it's her girlfriend/roommate, the now famous 'Ro-Lal') being a little paranoid and always locking doors, no matter if she's coming or going. Kanaya swings her fist back out, and you're scared for a second but you don't really know why. You're always sort of scared, anyway, so you guess that it doesn't matter. But you watch her movements-- she only did it to release the keys, and now she's sorting through them, finds the house key and unlocks the door. The young woman pushes the door open, and steps aside, waving you in.

 

You walk over the threshold, looking around. Kanaya has some sweet digs, especially for a college student. You try to smile, your mouth opening a little trying to form the words of thanks that this girl deserves. But you lock up. Your inner voice starts up a soliloquy again, screaming at you in a crescendo because no, no, no, everything is going wrong. You were supposed to fly today, supposed to die, supposed to leave every one alone and just end this fucking mess. You start to shake. You can't move your legs, can barely breathe. Your hand moves to your wrist and you start scratching, trying to find a rhythm to calm you down, trying to find a pain to distract you like it always has. A quiet _scritch scritch scritch_ and you curse yourself because your nails are trimmed, bitten down and you can't even scratch right can't even do that.

 

Kanaya walks in behind you, closing the door and setting the backpacks in the corner and she's so sweetly oblivious to the fact that you want to self-destruct again, that you're not even sure if you can stay safe here. She stretches again, her back arching like a cat, and you wonder if she does yoga. If you could have asked her to teach you, if you had met under different circumstances.

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

Someone comes down the stairs, skipping some and smiling a little. She's short-- not that much shorter than you but compared with Kanaya she's miniscule, tiny bird bones and features with big joints, your seismograph jumps and tells you that something is wrong here but you shrug it off because corpses just don't care, with blonde hair and stunning eyes that you can see from here, blue-gray and maybe it's the colors she's wearing but they look purple and pink too, a rainbow compared to Kanaya's constant green. This girl, probably the girlfriend, yes, definitely the girlfriend, stands up on tiptoes and greets Kanaya with a kiss. Your eyes snap back closed, looking away behind eyelids. You hate yourself, you feel dirty and grimy because you are so jealous, wished that you were one of them but even more wishing that you were dead.

Someone says “sorry,” you think it's you, your body is flying on autopilot and you can hardly think but you think that you're turning around, you feel metal in your hand, you're reaching back for the door. “Sorry, I'm sorry, I have to go home.”

“Tell me a story.” It's a voice you don't recognize. It has to be the girlfriend.

“What? Who are you?”You know exactly who it is but you're just so tired, so over thinking and being awake and being alive, scraping at the bottom of the barrel of your words and some extra ones came up.

“My name is Rose Lalonde, and before you go I demand that you tell me a story.” The blonde girlfriend, Rose, you guess, steps in front of the door, her hand pushing yours off the handle gently. Your eyes close again and you hear a little click-- she's locked the door and you feel two little hands on your shoulders now, leaving imprints because touch hard-wires itself into your memory for some reason.

Your eyes are open, staring at a spot above the couch where a portrait of a stone garden Buddha hangs and you're a thousand miles away, trying to plan an escape not necessarily from their apartment but from this life but some little part of you that still wants to live teams up with the big part of you that kind of loves Kanaya, couldn't dream of making her clean up another suicide, not after what she told you about Tavros and Vriska and being Vriska's roommate and how it made her herself feel because no one that perfect should ever be that broken. 

“Hey, kiddo, you okay?” Kanaya asks, realizing that yet again something is seriously up, and her hands are right above Rose's and you move away, walking blindly forward into their house, sinking onto your knees in the living room. You fold your arms under your chest, curling up into a little ball. You feel something on your face, and you're crying. “No no no not okay no please help me.”

Kanaya crouches down next to you, you can't see her anymore but you feel the floor shift a little, can hear her settle by you, can tell when she moves from sitting to resting on her forearms and shins. “What can I do to help you? Please, tell me. I want to help...” You can hear the water in her voice.

“Kill me, please please just kill me I'm sorry.” You tell her, you're shaking hard and you want this to be the end, in your mind you are scampering up stairs and finding their bathroom and taking anything and everything you can find, pill-wise, and overdosing. But Kanaya's hands are on your back and you can't move out from under them.

“You know that's off-limits, kid.” Rose says quietly, you think she's standing over you. Her voice is soft too but with a little something in the background. She looked tired. Maybe she's tired, not tired of living but just normal okay sane person tired.

“I'm sorry I'm sorry Kanaya, Rose, sorry sorry sorry.” You cringe, thinking of all the people that you've hurt and you're squirming now, trying to get up to find something to cut or to burn or to poison you because you really can not stand being alive anymore.


	7. Chapter 7

“Your name. Teach me how to say your name. I never got it right and I want you to teach me. Can you do that?” Kanaya says quietly and suddenly, trying to distract you, cupping your face in her hands and lifting it up. It's red and puffy and stinging with salt, but you nod. She puts her hands out and you take them slowly, she pulls you out from this crouch you've found yourself in, as if she's trying to pull you out of this whole episode.

The three of you sit in a circle on the floor in the living room. It smells like incense and you think one of the girls has lit a stick, actually. Carefully, because your voice is shaking, you pronounce your name, and they coo because they've never heard anything like it before.

“Tavrisprite...” Rose says, rolling the name around in her mouth. Her eyes glisten and she smiles. “Did I get it right?”

You sniff and nod, shifting around and sitting on your calves now, looking down and counting the boards of hardwood flooring trying to keep your mind quiet. Maybe it works too well... the whole room is silent for too long, minus the click of a furnace or something else rooms away.

“You're overwhelmed, aren't you, Tavrisprite?” The silence is broken by Kanaya. You nod again in response-- yeah, you're overwhelmed. To the point of wanting to die.

“Being a kid and growing up, it's hard. It's hard and, a lot of the time, no one seems to understand.” Kanaya says, measuring her words a little, making sure she gets a chance to try your name out a couple times too, her smile lighting up. Her voice is soft like a song and part of you starts to think that maybe you're already dead because no one, especially no stranger, has ever been this kind to you. Has never heeded the warning signs that you showed and pushed before you knew the words to ask for help and long before you were convinced that the likes of you shouldn't use them. “But, kiddo, everyone older than you faced growing up. A lot of them had to grow up like you-- upset and scared and hiding and sometimes even suicidal...”

Rose and Kanaya catch eyes for a second, like they're acknowledging a truth that is out in the open but not verbally spoken.

“And I know it's hard to talk about. The stigma wrapped around it all-- you feel like you're going crazy, you feel like you're alone because you never hear anyone talking about it. But... but you're not! You're not crazy, you're not alone... and, I just... I know you're hurting so much and I wish I knew what else I could do...” Kanaya trails off, wringing her hands again like she did hours ago in the library, even though it feels like seconds but also years, like maybe time has realized that you're hopping off the train soon and disintegrated just for you.

Rose taps her girlfriend's shoulder, and murmurs something you can't quite hear. “Oh, right! Shit shit, hey, Tavrisprite, uh, can I ask about the parent situation?” Kanaya asks, her tone upbeat again, trying to sound professional, the same voice she used when she first saw you, asked what you were missing in geometry, a little too chipper for the person you pretend you know now, but not out of place.

“They both work... my dad is out of town for business this week and my mom... she, uh, commutes really far and stays late and sometimes she just stays at a motel for a few days I don't know what's going on ever... sorry...” You say, something telling you that your whole family's downfall was your fault even when logic returns and reminds you that that is simply not the case.

“No, no! Don't be sorry, I just-- I need to tell someone where you are and that you're okay and... stuff like that.” Kanaya says, her hands flying out of her lap to tap the air, trying to comfort you. “Do you, uh, mind if I use your phone?”

You nod, pulling your phone out of your pocket. You scroll through your contacts before you reach 'Mom Cell Phone' and hand it to Kanaya. She bows a little as she takes it and presses 'OK' to complete the call. She holds it delicately near her ear, and she can hear (and you can too, because your phone is loud and your mom is less than attentive) the ring, ring, ring in the background and you feel bad because no one is picking up, that Kanaya is going to have to explain this basket-case night to voice mail.

And she does. “Hi there, I'm Kanaya Maryam, a volunteer tutor from the university. I was working with Tavrisprite and there was an occurrence, and I was worried for their safety if they went home on their own. They're at my apartment just off campus...” She gives the message her address and her own cell phone number, before hanging up and returning the phone back to you.


	8. Chapter 8

Kanaya's gaze settles on a little digital clock, and you follow it. The two of you met at the library around 3. It's 7:15 now, a world exploded in a mere four hours and fifteen minutes. You went from absolutely dying to probably not, at least not tonight. This stranger, now maybe your best friend even if she would never feel the same about you, went from a polished perfect person to someone with a few cracks, filled with gold and she's still a masterpiece and you're hoping and praying that you can manage to make yourself long enough for your cracks to be filled with gold, for yourself to become art to be worthy of good memory.

“Oh, hey, Tavrisprite-- uh, we should probably have some dinner... um, do you like chicken soup?” Kanaya asks, using her hands to balance herself as she pushes up from the carpet and stands. She offers hands to both you and Rose, and you both take them, being pulled up to steady feet.

“Yeah,” you say, but your stomach is kind of turning. You're still at war with the idea that you should have been dead by now. You planned to be dead before 5 o'clock, because that would mean that even if your mom came home tonight, even if your dad's trip was ended early and he came back, you'd be dead before they'd get there. So it wouldn't be as much of a fight. So you could imagine that instead of a fucked-up kid who still had people around who cared, you could be a fucked-up kid all alone that the world had never even meant to create, would never even miss.

“Great. Then that's what we'll have.” She smiles and walks out into the kitchen. Your eyes follow her until she disappears out of view of the doorway, and then you retreat, leaning on the banister of the stairs.

“I'm really glad that you're still around, kid.” Rose says, her soft rainbow iridescent eyes meeting yours. “No one really ever congratulates us on the things that end up mattering... like eating a meal when we're terrified of food, or living when we planned to die. So, I guess... congrats. Really. I'm happy that you're still alive. Try it again tomorrow.” She smiles, and you try to smile back but you're not sure if your mouth still moves that way anymore.

“When we were kids, there was just... a lot of shit, man. There's still a lot of shit, we're still kids, pretty much.” Rose muses, she shakes her head just a little and then laughs, like she doesn't want to believe it. “If anyone ever tells you that being eighteen means being grown up, being twenty or thirty or eighty or a hundred or immortal... if they ever tell you that you're ever really grow up, they're wrong and they're lying but don't be too hard on them, because a lot of people lie just to protect the ones that they love.”

You nod. This girl is smart. “What are you studying, Rose?” You ask her, tapping your fingers on the wall, bursts of nervous energy redirected to your limbs instead of in your mind where it tends to become dangerous thoughts. 

Rose's eyes light up, like you just gave her the world. “Social studies education. I want to teach history and psychology and stuff like that. Kanaya's going for Math education.” She explains, and her smile is huge.

“You seem really happy-- like it's your favorite thing in the world.” You tell her, still trying to match her pretty smile.

“Living is my favorite thing in the world, and Kanaya is second, but social studies is still a close one.” Rose says, shifting on her feet. She's still smiling and her eyes are sparkling. “What do you think you want to study?”

“Like, at college?” You ask, curious because you're not really sure if anyone has asked you, at least not since you started seeing the dark clouds all fogging up your head.

“Well, college or vocational school or something.” Rose shrugged. “What do you like?”

“Uh... art, I guess. And English is pretty cool. Foreign languages.” You tell her, twisting a button on your cardigan between your fingertips. You like all of these things and even while your grades majorly tanked, these stayed up decently. B's, mostly, but sometimes maybe a C. 

Rose nods. “Hmmm. Well, who knows Tavrisprite, maybe you could be a teacher?” She laughs, but you can read it-- it's not a mean laugh but a happy laugh because she knows as well as you that you becoming anything means that you survive tonight, and god damn it you really don't think, don't know if anyone before has actually cared if you lived or died before today. 

“Maybe. I don't really know. I, uh, I haven't really been planning for a future, to be completely honest.” You tell her, and you meet her eyes and they're a little sad at that news but they're also reflecting, like Rose understands exactly what this mindset does to you, to you specifically even though it packs different punches for different people.

“Dinner's ready, you guys.” Kanaya appears in the doorway, thin hands around a glass of water and she's sipping it carefully. You follow Rose into the kitchen, but you're starting to feel uneasy again. Another wave of absolute self-loathing floods over you and you feel that your existence is a mistake, unacceptable and this fuck up is irreconcilable to the universe, can never be made up for.

The three of you sit around a little table, which doesn't match the chairs and the chairs don't match each other and you know exactly what you're doing, the fact that you're looking for metaphors in the choice of college kids' dining room furniture, but you're just trying to survive right now, your head feels like it's tearing itself apart almost, a riptide trying so hard to pull you under and you wonder, just a little, if you get up and walk like you know what you're doing, will they let you go? Thinking you're just going to the bathroom or to grab something from your backpack? And then you'd open up the door and walk out and maybe run for a while and right now you think it wouldn't be all that horrible to be hit by a truck, an 18-wheeler so that even if the impact doesn't kill you you'll at least be passed four or six wheels or so before they realize that they hit a little kid not just a fucking dirty opossum or something. 

You lose track of what you're doing. Kanaya and Rose are talking about something and you're all at the table, a little bowl of French bread slices in front of you all and you just tune the noise out, watching how Kanaya's hands work and how Rose takes at least five sips of water for every bite of food she actually eats but you just really don't know what's going on. You're lost again and you feel spun around. You were supposed to be dead almost three hours ago by now. But once again you managed to fuck something up.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm sorry this chapter took so long. I had been writing this fic much longer but then my computer died, so I switched to my father's and just now realized that this was an okay place to stop. thanks for hanging on, and I hope you keep with the series. c:

You finish dinner with the girls, and then watch Mean Girls because they tell you it’s their favorite movie to watch when either of them are down (more accurately, it’s Rose’s favorite, but Kanaya likes it because it’s Rose’s favorite). 

And then it’s somehow midnight and you are still alive. You decide this is a streak you can keep up.

Your mom picks you up in the morning and you beg Kanaya not to tell her what happened, and Kanaya looks uncertain, says “I could get in so much trouble for this” but eventually tells your mom that you just forgot your house keys and you couldn’t find the extra one.

You pray every night to whatever is out there, thankful that the universe sent you Rose and Kanaya because god damn it, it’s a week later and then a month and then six and then a whole year and you are still alive.

You’re friends with the girls on Facebook and in mutual follows on Tumblr and you see them every couple of weeks and when they ‘get married’ by which to say when Kanaya sews cute white sundresses and you have a party in a garden you’re invited and you show up and wear a flower crown and laugh with the girls who saved your life.  
You realized that you had never wanted to die, you just wanted to live differently.


End file.
